Liger30The Uk ruled the world and won the two world wars and the Falklands (and arguably the Cold War too) with the navy and over the sea, with the Royal Navy.
Now it doesn’t need to rule the world anymore… but is still over the sea that the Uk should live and reason and plan.
Liger30On the contrary, it showed the opposite. The cost cutting measures led to a situation where lives were lost and despite the perception as some kind of grand victory, the argies were a few unexploded bombs away from essentially decimating the combat capability of the royal navy. If the less than stellar capabilities of the SHAR weren’t there, it would have been a blood bath. No matter how good you think your AAW ship is, it will never be as good in defending against an air attack as a fighter…and whatever you do don’t send those AAW ships into service with an obsolete radar in order to save money.
That’s the same reason why observations like “but Trident has never been used” make me shiver.
Trident IS being used, and it is the MOST EFFECTIVE WEAPON EVER: because its existance ensures that we don’t have to use it. A weapon capable to destroy the world, and people goes saying smart things like “it never is used…”
Trident has been effective in granting the Cold War would stay COLD. As it is, it has been the best investment EVER.
You can’t expect it to prevent any small war, it can’t prevent the Falklands (good carrier-borne air power does that better), but the atomic bombs granted europe 70 years of peace.
People still don’t get it.
The truth is that Trident, just like the carriers, work TOO WELL.
As soon as the Royal Navy announced it was going to scrap its carriers, Argentina moved. Too good deterrence the carriers had been, preventing any attempt of Argies to move! “We don’t need them. We never use them!”
How much did the Falklands war cost? Retain decent military power is always the less expensive way to go, at the end of the day, since it can prevent the start of a conflict.
Europe forgot this lesson long ago. One of the last examples of people who knew this concept was that one German minister that, answering to people bitching about the noise of Tornado planes flying low, said “Love this sound, because it is the sound of Peace.”
Peace works in a room full of men armed with guns. But if one or a few of them aren’t armed and the other ones are… Well, you can imagine.
Bullying doesn’t quite describe it.
Liger30@ Liger30: Nice write-up. Agree with a lot.
Especially the “areas of excellence” approach: Subwarfare (offensive, defensive), Special Forces, ELINT. Perfect fit for a gradual slide into an European force structure.
However, I don’t see a national stand-alone naval and amphibious power projection capability against a more capable enemy within reach of the UK forces any longer, since the RN can’t guarantee the forcible entry into a theatre PLUS deliver ground warfare elements onto defended foreign shores. It’s either or. This makes a joint European approach logical.
Why? The UK has far greater power projection capability from the sea than France, Italy, Spain or anyone else that is not the US, within NATO.
The 3 Commando brigade with its ships is a formidable and well-designed force, and if Italy, France etc, with less capable ships, less strategic transport capability and such still require their forces to be able to project power from the sea, i don’t see why the UK would be unable to do it.
The amphibious capabilities of the UK at the moment are quite formidable, actually. Sure, it could not replay Overlord, but war has changed. The Royal Marines are perfectly able to set their foot ashore and fight their way. They proved it in Iraq in 2003, and they could prove it again at any time.
We don’t have to dream about invading Russia by sea, but realize the strategic value, starting with deterrence and ending with the capability to launch a massive attack to strategic locations.
The Marines put most of the world’s coastline theorically in the aiming sight. No one is able to cover the whole coastline, and this is why a force capable to attack from the sea is so valuable.
See it as a raid, as a way to capture positions of strategical relevance (as in Iraq in 2003 when there was the need to secure oil drilling stuctures)… No one could do it better than the Marines.
Geography dictates it. 70% of the world’s population and most of the world’s cities (capitals included) being pretty close to the sea, make projection from the sea massively relevant.
Everyone has some kind of amphibious power projection capability, from Chile to Italy to India to China to Taiwan to Holland. You truly are suggesting the UK can and should do without it…?
Makes more sense to close down both heavy armor divisions. Who’s going to invade the UK if the Navy can stop them at sea?
What use do we envision for an Heavy Armor brigade on an island where there’s not even enough space to train it…?
The UK is more likely to use an amphibious assault than an heavy armor division.
I always hear bragging about Cold War relics… But really no one noticed yet that the Heavy brigades of Challenger II have been created, IN GERMANY, to fight off the Soviet Union and its 78.000 T72 tanks?
Arguably, the true Cold War relics are the 7th and the 20th armored. Awesome as the Desert Rats are, sorry, but i must notice it. Heavy tank brigades are the least british of all things. A birth of the Cold War called Army of the Rhein.
If anything, the SDSR should recognize two main points: UK is an island. Every future mission abroad is likely to be far away from Europe.
Another fact is that transferring large amount of men, and in particular equipment, by the air is a slow, complex process. It’ll always come down to moving things over the sea. And a capacity not just to transport things to a friendly port, but to “break down the door with a kick” must be retained and, if anything, expanded.
Liger30They exists, but anti-submarine role (ASROC, Milas…) with light-torpedo like the stingray rapidly brought at range to attack a sonar contact in time effective way.
The Spearfish is heavy like hell, and i guess that a “pure” anti-ship missile could be easier to build and more effective at the end of the day. Don’t forget that Spearfish torpedoes, just mike MK48 ADCAP and such, are wire-guided most of the time.
Liger30As a LPH her air craft would be at the beck and call of the marines, they wouldnt be there to provide air defense
Yeah. But the choppers fly without crew? Without ground crews, too? It would still take around 200 men of the air group. Even Ocean has on board around 180 FAA men.
Liger30Yes a carrier with out a fighter centric air wing, that is what happens now when the Ark Royal is being used as a comando carrier. And Again the Cavour is larger more expensive ship with a destroyers combat system. I do not know why the Italians designed her to be so man power intensive but they did, the carrier i propose is modeled after the Mistral concept, where specialty personnel are placed on board when needed.
Liger are you Italian? Because you need to imagine your self as a British Admiral or defense minister for this scenario.
Still, even with the fighters down, in LPH role you’ll have 150 men in the command center and 200 for the helicopters. Nothing changes. More planes, less choppers, More choppers less planes, but the point does not change.
Liger30The Cavor’s core crew is 450, for the majority of her service life she will never see a full mardet, airwing, Flag staff, and crew at the same time. The French Operate the Mistral with just short of 200 men.
And i have never said that is what i want i said that is the ideal maximum, knowing that the ship would nominally operate smaller air detachments. In addition to that the ship will not have a EMF and air wing at the same time.
A carrier without air wing…?
Italy is not dreamland, but i can ensure you that, differently from Lusty, the Garibaldi, and in the future Cavour, do not run around that often without planes on board.
We have very few Harriers, but they are all of the Navy, so there’s no air force stealing them away from the ship. Same will be with the F35B going to the navy.
Rarely Cavour will be at sea with less than 650 men on board.
And to build small carriers with no well deck, with no embarked air group, and with self-defence weaponry only makes even less sense.
Stick to the CVFs, and you won’t regret it, i say. Half-assed projects shouldn’t be the Royal Navy’s field. The RN is a navy of excellence.
Liger30Well a billion dollars will be the down right minimum you will pretty much pay for any large aviation ship this day and age. And they really are not that ambitious of a design seeing that the Ocean is just slightly smaller then that size. The Self Defense capabilities Im giving them are really not that great, with the exception of maybe the Artisan which will be fitted on the Type 23’s in best material condition and the CVF’s
All five ships with their core crews of a 150 would come in even to just one CVF, and never at any time would all five ships be fully operational with a dozen JSF’s and support helicopters. Some would be down for refit, or in training, or transit.
Core crew of 150???
Cavour crew: 794, of which over 200 for the air crewing, to carry no more than 20/24 between planes and, mostly, helicopters. You want to carry no less than 18 F35 or 30 helos, so we probably go to almost 900 men and probably higher since normal air group for Cavour with this crew is merely 12 F35B and 8 Merlins helos.
Cost without planes: 1108 million euro.
You want a larger one, that carries more planes. Ideally, to justify them, they should have amphibious assault capability too, to replace Ocean and Albion class too.
What we assume? 2 billions each, considering that british shipyards cost more than italian ones?
No way. It will never work.
Liger30I agree, 5 25-30 Kt ships would of been what i would of done. I would of designed them as modern HMS Invincibles/Oceans. Each capable of 28-29 Kts, holding roughly up to 30 helos or up to 18 JSFs or any realistic combination of the above. They would all serve double duty as Comando carriers if the need be. I would then buy roughly 50-60 JSF’s to fill out the Fleet Air Arm just to ensure if need be at least 3 could be used as limited avaition ships. I would design them with a small core crew of 150+/- and the airwing or EMF would rotate on as needed. The ships combat systems would be CAMM, a gun based CIWS, and two or three 30mm NGS and equiped with a Artisan Radar system.
Not trying to start a Flame war but I would say UK even with its higher GDP has fallen behind France as a maritime nation , and to that extent India and China (with Brazil determined to close that gap also) are more relevant maritime powers in this day and age. One thing all theses nations have is a vision on what it wants for their fleets and maritime doctrine and that is something the UK and US currently do not have
5??? FIVE??? I had missed that detail!
Even hoping for 3 is demented with the budget available, but 5!
What next, scrapping CVF for a used Nimitz with air group and escort fleet…?
Please. Get real. Not to be rude, but get real.
Liger30Yeah, but we are looking at a fleet of 6 Astutes IF things go the right way, maybe as few as 5.
6 down from a requirement that was of 12, then 10, then the desperate plea of the admirals to save at least 8…
While subsonic missiles are carried only by the Type 22/23 and (hopefully) a bunch of air-launched Harpoons are available for Nimrods. (if Nimrods survive at all).
Add to it the fact that subsonic missiles are pretty “easy” to intercept before they hit the ship, and you have a rather nasty picture.
Liger30I agree, 5 25-30 Kt ships would of been what i would of done. I would of designed them as modern HMS Invincibles/Oceans. Each capable of 28-29 Kts, holding roughly up to 30 helos or up to 18 JSFs or any realistic combination of the above. They would all serve double duty as Comando carriers if the need be. I would then buy roughly 50-60 JSF’s to fill out the Fleet Air Arm just to ensure if need be at least 3 could be used as limited avaition ships. I would design them with a small core crew of 150+/- and the airwing or EMF would rotate on as needed. The ships combat systems would be CAMM, a gun based CIWS, and two or three 30mm NGS and equiped with a Artisan Radar system.
Do you realize that each ship would cost well over a billion, yes…? You are talking of ships far more ambitious than both BPE Camberra, Italian Cavour and such.
Three crews, too, that combined would overcome the crewing needed for both CVFs. And thus overcome the cost too.
Liger30It seems as if the Falklands War has been a disaster for the Royal Navy. The war itself was won, but the requirements of that particular war and the deficiencies it exposed seem to have dominated fleet planning and ship design in the navy since then, with the unfortunate result that there are too many largely single-purpose big ships. This type of fleet can be sustained only by a wealthy superpower, which Britain no longer is.
The Royal Navy would be better off, IMHO, aiming for a fleet of 3 to 6 ~30,000 ton capital ships that are multipurpose carrier/LHA/LHD type ships, along the lines of the BPE/Canberra class. They may not have the ‘sortie generation rate’ of the CVFs, but (a) they would not be as expensive; (b) there would always be at least two available; and (c) if you really need to invade some serious opponent’s country, then send two or three of these ships to provide the required air power.
Just a thought….
I utterly disagree with this kind of assumptions.
The UK IS a major power still, and has got a greater GDP than France. The fact that the UK is no longer keeping pace with France is due merely to the fact that defence is the daughter of the slave of the house from at least 20 years.
The Falklands war brought a much needed sparkle of sanity in government planning that was about to definitively sink the british armed forces.
Arguably, much as it is an horrible though and a cynical observation, the UK desperately needs another war, and fast, so that the errors are tackled while they can still be tackled. Last time the Falklands came just in time for the carriers to be retained.
The fear is: what if the next one crisis come just a tad too late…?
1982: Argentina waits a few months more. Invincible is sold. Hermes is scrapped. Fearless is scrapped.
Result: goodbye Falklands. Uk forced to accept the humiliation of losing sovereign territory to the first desire of a foreign “power” that invades it with force.
Without doubt the worst moment EVER in UK’s history.
Can the UK do the same errors so many times in a row…? It is surprising if the answer is yes. Everyone, after a few times, tends to learn the lessons.
Uk already regret decisions on aircraft carriers at least twice, in the “East of Suez” madness and then in 1982. Do you really need a third go…?
Liger30I’m not sure i agree. Apart from Somali pirates, what other potential rivals in the world, even without thinking of “major” powers, have ships that can be attacked with LGBs without being targeted by all sorts of SAM missiles…?
I dare saying “none”.
The day the pirates will get a few Strela SA7 portable SAMs, everyone will have missiles to fire.
Of course, war planes are made to challenge SAMs and still drop their bombs, but… you know. A warship is a warship. It would be far nicer to fire a bunch of missiles at the ship and let the enemy deal with them.
Liger30Given that the KEPD350 is already integrated on the Typhoon, and has a range of 500 km presumably it could be brought as is on UOR if the UK needs longer ranged cruise missile in the near future (such as if war with Iran breaks out in the next five years).
My main concern is lack of shorter ranged supersonic cruise missiles which can be used against ships – I presume that it is not the lack of a launching platform that has stopped RAF/FAA from acquiring them for Typhoon’s, Tornado’s and the F-35 but more to do with what the RAF/FAA see as the most appropriate platforms to launch anti-shipping missiles (i.e. a preference for the use of helicopters for ASW).
As an aside – I have tried to find this out but what happens to UK SEAD/DEAD capabilities if Tornado’s are retired early as suggested by some pundits? Is ALARM near the end of it’s service life? Will the UK buy HARM for it F-35’s?
I was scared about SEAD capabilities myself. I heard somewhere that ALARM might go in 2013, and that would be not just a shame, but a massive trouble.
I certainly think the missile has the potential to provide sterling service for many, many more years. It is more advanced than even the latest HARM, so i think the RAF must retain it, absolutely.
As to SEAD missions, the Typhoon is expected to carry up to 6 ALARM missiles. There’s only the need to fund missile integration, so no real problem there.
Anti-Ship missiles are a major deficency for the RAF/FAA. There’s only a bunch of Harpoons for use by the Nimrods, and nothing else.
The lack of money prevented the services from all but advancing a requirement in that sector.
With the loss of Tornado GR1B-launched Sea Eagles, the RAF pretty much became incable to attack ships, and i don’t see the situation changing anytime soon.
The Typhoon could carry Penguins, though, and other kind of missiles could be integrated on it if there ever were funds and will to tackle this gap.
Liger30I think the RAF has to redefine itself, it no longer has the straight forward task of supporting a land battle in Germany while defending the UK from Russian bombers.
It could be argued that the strategic and tactical air lift, along with ISTAR and CAS are better handled by the Army, and that strike missions are better handled by the Navy, as most of the time they are going to be the first fighters in theatre. I can see pro’s and con’s of this happening, but it might be worth debating.
However, carrier operations are a perishable skill set so I would be pushing for the core areas of the RAF to be: 1) Air defence with Typhoon and 2) long range strike – best option a Taranis derived UCAV, as the days of long ranged manned bombers are drawing to the close. The RAF should then share some shorter ranged strike aircraft (like F-35) with the FAA, to allow for long term deployments so that the FAA does not have to land base and loose precious carrier skills, which is especially true if the carriers go CATOBAR. I would keep the structure of Joint Harrier Force, increase it to consist of two or three RAF squadrons and three FAA squadrons.
The Guardian story I posted in the UK to buy F/A-18 thread, mentions the idea again of cruise missiles instead of ballistic missiles as the basis of the nuclear deterrent – and says that some service heads are keen on the idea. I suspect the RAF in this, as I am sure they would love to get back the nuclear strike mission, along with budget to build stealthy bomber and super sonic nuclear cruise missiles. I could even see the Army colluding in this if they thought that the RAF would also have a bomber to provide long loiter time CAS like the B-1 Lancer’s have done in Afghanistan. Just imagine a large stealthy bomber with say payload of 30 SDB II’s and the ability to loiter for 8 – 10 hours.
Trouble is: who gives anyone the money for all this?
I hope the combined force of planes that will come out of the SDSR will be 140 Typhoons (“good” to scrap/sell the T1s, but a bunch of T3 should be bought in that case. It would be a long term expense that will in time remedy to the short term cut and related savings while providing secure jobs, tax revenues and economic stimulus.)
Nimrod safe.
Rivet Joint safe.
Navy gets all F35B simply because there will never be enough of them, it seems. I hope no less than 70 are acquired, but it is not an easy bet to make, so we must be careful with the daydreaming.
We could, at the most, reverse the current situation in which the Fleet Air Arm provides a squadron of crews but has no planes (Harriers are all in the RAF, one squadron + 4th squadron which became the Harrier OCU).
In the future, the RAF will provide a squadron or so of crews, get some operation on the F35 every now and then, but planes to the navy so that they ACTUALLY do what they are acquired to do, go at sea on QE.
Have six active squadrons of F35 was the plan: 6 x 12 active squadrons, + 14 in OCU + 14 in OEU + 38 reserve airframes. Total buy: 138 planes.
We all know we are not going to see this, unfortunately. It would have been awesome, since there would have been the capability to put at sea two complete wartime wings.
QE with 3 Squadrons
PoW with other 3
But i fear that now it is sci-fi to say the least.
As to switching back to air launched deterrence, it would end up costing 3 times the submarines if the Uk started building castles in the air with stealth bombers, air tankers to give them range, and supersonic cruise nuclear-tipped missiles.
At the most, we’d be looking at an half-assed air launched deterrent made up by a nuclear cruise missile, probably subsonic, and nothing more.
It would be a saving in terms of money, but it would be laughable a deterrent to say the very, very least.
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